A Question of Loyalty
by Sir Dedrick the Cool
Summary: Tony Dallon never suspected that anybody would ever come to know him without realizing that he was a famous healer. His loyalty is tested when a girl he has come to care for turns out to be a villain.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: This is my very first fic and I am really excited to post it here! Without further ado let's get this party started right!

Anthony Dallon who was actually called Antonius by his father when he was young but had had that name changed when he was abducted by the Dallons when they sent his pappy to prison was sitting on the stoop outside of Arcadia High. It was the kind of day when Anthony who was called Tony by his friends felt kind of lonesome. He was the best healer in the city and went by All Curer. This meant that Tony didn't have so many friends. Many people tried to befriend him in order to make him cure their sick families and many others just wanted to show off the influence they had among the capes of New Wave. Others had even more Ludacris reasons. One person had actually approached him on the street and accused him of being in league with Allfather because he was styling himself All Curer. And others still, well, they were just curious about his cure and tried exploiting Tony for moneys.

Tony was brought from his thoughts when a luscious youngster showed up in front of the stairs.

"Hi! My name is Taylor. And who might you be?" she asked nicely.

Tony didn't know what to say. Here was a girl who didn't recognize him even though he was the healer in charge and a New Wave member as well. It filled his heart with such joy when he realized that there were people who didn't see him as All Curer, famous healer, but simply as a handsome teenage boy they'd like to get to know.

"Oh! I'm T-T-T-Tony!" he stuttered out feeling kind of weird. The girl just grinned and told him her name was Taylor but that he could call her Lor for short because everybody else did. He saw a sudden flash of sadness in her brown eyes then. He didn't really want to ask her but he was afraid she might be hurting deep inside so he asked her about it. She told him that she had been bullied for quite some time so most people didn't actually call her that anymore but she also made clear that she wanted Tony to do it.

"Those daredevils will get what is coming to them. Just wait and see, Lor." This is what Tony told her. Lor now realized that she had someone to confide in and that she had made a new friend. Barely holding back a choked sob she sprang in to his arms. Surrendering to his urges he leaned forward and kissed her forehead tenderly. Her skin tasted so good and salty on his tongue as he gently licked the skin there, getting tingles. It was not often somebody talked to him and didn't care about his cape identity. He supposed he should have gone to Cape Town for that. (Author's note: Cookie for anybody who understands my little pun!)

Tony realized that he could fall in love with this girl so he asked her out for pizza.

Taylor agreed and they walked together to Barabas Pizza. Sometimes their hands would touch accidentally and Tony and Lor would both feel the tingle in their hands. Tony wanted to intertwine fingers with her because her hand felt so soft and tender against his but he felt it would be a little forward so instead he started humming "A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You" by The Monkees. Maybe he should have hummed Sam and Dave's "You Got me Humming" instead, but now that would just be weird, he thought in a self deprecating way. Besides, not many teenagers probably knew the Memphis Soul classic. Maybe they would have heard "Soul Man," but "You Got me Hummin'" was a more obscure number and he doubted most people his age would have heard it unless they were really into Sam and Dave which most people his age weren't. Maybe Lor was but he didn't want to run the risk of being ridiculed already. After all he had just gotten to know her, and he had no idea what kind of music she was into. She probably wasn't into The Monkees either, but they were more conventional for white suburban America where Lor, and Tony, for that matter, grew up. It was just that Tony had been all around the world, so he knew music from other walks of life, whereas he couldn't be sure if Lor did. So he kept humming The Monkees, but in his head his thougts were a hot sticky mess.

When they came to the pizza place they sat down.

"Oh no! I forgot! I haven't got a single penny on me!" Lor said despairingly. "Being pennyless is such a drag, but I need to go, though it was ever so nice to meet you Tony," she continued sadly. Tony felt such disappointment, but it was quickly squashed. "Hey! Why don't I make it a treat? It's ever so nice to meet someone who don't just want to walk around with me because of my cape activity" Misquoting a Ramones lyric aside, Tony felt pretty swav as he saw the look in Lor's eyes turn from sadness to interested and slightly passionate.

"Reaally?" Taylor asked. "You'd do that for me?"

"Sure I would," grinned Tony. And he ordered. Taylor felt so happy at this.

"One pizza with Peperoni," the waitress said.

"That's not what I ordered," Lor said disappointedly. Tony glared daggers at the waitress, but she refused to budge. That was what had been ordered she claimed. So Tony and Lor laid their heads together and came up with a plan. When the plan was finished they both grinned. Getting Taylor the poper food would be exciting indeed. Even more exiting than The Exiters and their smash hit "Tell Me" from 1964, Tony thought, and that was one exiting tune indeed.

Author's Note: Will they get Taylor the proper food? Find out in the next chappie. Oh and review my story. This is my first time doing this so please "Act Nice And Gentle" as The Kinks would say. Bye bye for now, and I love you all so much!


	2. Dining Without Dashing

For a while, they just smirked. They felt so tempted to just enjoy the cleverness of the plan they had come up with that they didn't really want to enact it. But the girl grew hungry, and time was of the essence, and not on their side like it was for Irma Thomas and The Rolling Stones, which was one of Tony's favourite bands, although he preferred the Irma Thomas version of that particular tune, as it was a lot more soulful than any rendition by English bluesmen such as The Stones could ever have hope of being.

They gave each other one last smirk for good luck, and then they enacted their cunning plan.

Taylor had suggested dashing without dining, but Tony didn't find that particularely dashing, and as a hero being dashing had to be his modus operandum. If not, there might be Trouble, and he didn't need trouble in the best of times, but he especially didn't need it right now. Of course he didn't give all these reasons. He just suggested that they do something else, so they did. Taylor called the waiter over and said she didn't realize she was allergic to some ingredients in the foodstuffs when she ordered, but that she had been too embarrassed to admit it.

The waiter's countenance softened at once.

"Oh, but you should have just said so, deary!", he said effusively.

Taylor bristled at the familiar form of address, but said nothing. After all, she had gotten exactly what she wanted.

And finally, with all this ado out of the world, the fast friends could talk. But what were they to talk about? Tony suddenly realized that he hardly knew the girl sitting across from him, twirling a fork as she waited for her peperoni pizza to be exchanged for some nice tagliatelle. What the hell was he to say? He wasn't really a people person at the best of time. The nice 'n' easy conversation au naturell which had flowed between them from the moment they met had completely stagnated in the aftermath of their ridiculous plan.

"It may have been cunning in getting Taylor her proper food, but it sure as hell didn't turn out well in the longrun," he thought bitterly to himself. Sighing in utter defeat, he turned to his blanket question. His family didn't quite approve, which was a bit ironic, he supposed, but right now any conversation would be better than none, and this was not really a public event, so he could justify it to himself quite easily.

"So," he started causciously. "What kind of music are you into, pray tell?"

"Oh, you know. Elvis Costello, The The, The Bunnymen, XTC," she trailed off when she realized she was just listing names, and quickly came up with a joke to fill the awkward silence as Tony tried figuring out how best to respond.

"I guess that's all you ever listen to, New Wave practically being your family and all."

Tony cringed slightly, and she could have kicked herself.

"Of course I had to bring that up," she thought self deprecatingly.

For his part, Tony gave a mental sigh. She just had to dumb down the joke, to explain it like he knew nothing about music. He knew it was irrational. This girl didn't know him any better than he knew her, after all. He should be happy she could joke around about his interests at all. He lightly scolded himself as he saw the pity in her eyes.

"And now she thinks I'm an oversensitive cissy about my family," he thought resignedly.

She was about to open her mouth, to say something else; something pitying, no doubt. He couldn't bare to hear it from the girl with whom he felt he had shared the bond of friendship and a deep connection only an hour ago.

"Those are all sound bands," he said. "I hope you have sound opinions on which of their albums are the best, too."

She grinned at his little pun. Things may not be back to the way they had been, but they weren't utterly terrible anymore, either. And surely that was a start, wasn't it?


	3. Forelorn Sighs and Whirling Emotions

Chapter Three

Author's Note: So this took a while to get out. I won't feed you some bull about my computer crashing or there being personal issues that kept me from writing. Fact is I just had other things I'd rather be doing with my time. "Sorry 'bout that" to quote The Hombre. You can look that up on YouTube if you're curious. If you don't, I won't be furious, but I might be a bit disappointed that my readers are uninterested in the things I'm interested in. But such is life, I suppose. Anyhow, here's a new chapter for your (insert feeling of choice.) So on with the show, and all that jazz, I suppose.

Chapter Three

Tony shut the door to his room softly. It didn't seem as though anybody had noticed his return five minutes earlier, but his mind was in a whirl and he needed to think, so being quiet like was probably his best course of action. Being disturbed as he thought things over would not do. Who knew what might come out of his little blabbermouth?

His family really didn't need to know what had happened tonight. They wouldn't necessarily say it, conscious of the public perception as they were, but Tony seriously doubted they would be thrilled to know that he had spent his leisure time with someone like that. Someone plane and average really wouldn't suit, no matter how inclusive his family wanted to be perceived. Everybody knew that inclusion and diversity was a message best sold through stunning good looks and conformity, after all. And all that nonsense was nothing compared to the girl's definite lack of moral fiber.

"Dashing without dining? Who even does that?" Tony could imagine Victoria and Paul asking sarcastically.

Tony sighed forelornly. He couldn't deny that he'd had a smashing time, as Television Personalities would say, no matter what his family might think. The girl seemed to be reasonably intelligent, if a bit amoral, what with her scheme to dash without dining. Musically, she seemed to be doing well enough, though Tony might prefer to spend his time with someone a bit more adventurous. That could be dealt with, though. Fact was, he'd had a reasonably good time, all in all, and that really didn't happen too often to poor Tony.

The boy went to put on a Smokey Robinson record. Smokey's received wisdom always seemed to cheer him up when he was in a mental, and not a musical, funk. But just as the needle was about to hit the platter, Tony's door opened. He turned around. Framed in the doorway stood his sister, the luscious Victoria.

"Hey, Tonester! I thought I heard you mucking about, no doubt making a racket with your wretched records," she smirked.

Tony sighed forelornly once more. It had been too much to hope for that nobody would notice the return of the prodigal son. Still, thank god it was the luscious Victoria, for whom he felt such an aching affection, and not someone less welcome.

"Oh yeah, I just got back, Tori Girl," Tony replied.

"Yeah, you may fool Mom and Dad, but you'll never be able to fool me, little guy!" Victoria ruffled Tony's hair, and he unconsciously leant into her touch. "Where have you been, anyway?"

"Oh, you know. Out and about." Tony tried for nonchalance. Victoria seemed to interpret it as coyness, though, and rather than having the intended effect, Tony's reply made a spark of mischievous interest flicker in the older girl's eyes.

"Oh, surely you don't believe that answer "satisfies my soul," as you would say?"

"First of all, it's not I who would have said it. I would just have quoted Muddy Waters as saying it." Tony replied hotly. "And secondly, well, I didn't rightly know."

"God, you're such a dork sometimes," Victoria cooed. "But you're my little dork," she continued playfully, ruffling Tony's hair so it stood out like a halo around his noggin.

A few seconds went by, and the room was filled with nought but the sound of Mark snoring from upstairs.

"Seriously, though, where were you?" Victoria finally persisted.

Tony let out a little sigh of defeat.

"Well, I decided to eat out today."

"Really? Where? I know you hate Bob's."

"If you must know, I blew all the money we got for bringing in Forkfingers on Barabas Pizza!" Tony said. He had finally grown annoyed at this persistant line of questioning. Maybe if he just answered truthfully, his luscious sister would get bored and leave.

"Barabas? Why would you go there? It's not really good form having heroes eating at a place named after a villain from The Bible," Victoria lectured.

"You sound like mom.." And here Tony made his voice imitate Carol's. "It's not right, Tony. It's not proper. Surely you couldn't think."

Victoria released an involuntary laugh, before scowling.

"Well excuse us for wanting New Wave to present a unified front," she huffed.

Tony's ploy had worked. She seemed to have lost all interest in where he had been, and more vitally, been blocked from asking with whom he had been there. She stormed out, her aura leaving his emotions all in a whirl.

"Well, musical and cinematic New Wave didn't present unified fronts. Why should things be different in the superhero community," he grumbled to himself once the door was closed. But deep down, he knew why. And he knew he was in the wrong, even though it annoyed him to no end.


	4. Double Trouble

Author's note: Hey, fellas, have you heard the news? The story's back in town! Pardon my reference to a band I'm not particularely into, but I thought it was funny, and dudes with stilted attitudes hate it when you make fun of "The Led" as Led Zeppelin are called by the boys who think they're in the know. Hey ho, let's go! Here's chapter four for those who want it, and for those who don't as well, come to think of it. Time for me to shut my little blabbermouth, I think. See you on the other side!

Chapter 4

Tony was in trouble. In fact, he would go so far as to say he was in double trouble. "Twice as much as anybody else, oh yeah!", as Elvis Presley, the so-called King of Rock And Roll, would put it. In a moment of indiscression he had let his transgression slip, and while his family were thrilled that he had made a new pal, the fact that he had been eating at Barabas Pizza was not received with pride and joy.

"Did you ever stop to think about how it would look to the public if you ate there?" his mother had demanded, her nose turned up in apparent disgust.

"What's the big deal? So maybe the name Barabas has some nasty biblical conotations, but I should think there would be worse places for us to have gone, what with the current state of education and the waning influence of Christianity," he had replied.

His guardians had not appreciated that, and for the next twenty minutes he had been the victim of a lecture on how an unmasked superhero had a far greater degree of responsibility to uphold the respectability and moral virtue of the parahuman community than did their masked counterparts. Had Tony for one second thought of how this information could be used by villain groups to soe distrust? In truth he hadn't, but as he did, the reaction seemed very exaggerated for what had at worst been a minor transgression.

As he had done so many times recently, Tony sighed forlornly. This was far from the first time his foster family had shown unreasonable expectations in regards to him. Ever since his seemingly unwanted arrival in their midst, he'd felt as if he was subject to a far more rigid moral code than the rest of the family, and for the life of him he couldn't figure out why.

His family didn't have any problems admitting it when Victoria did wrong, but they usually decided that the punishment would suffice once they had given her a short talking to. With Tony it was different. In addition to their rants being a lot longer, they were also a lot sterner when applied to him, as though the slightest misdeed was a cause for worry and showed his significant lack of moral fiber. Which was why two days later found Tony walking aimlessly down the street, rather than in his room listening to "The Fidelity Wars" by Hefner. He'd simply had to get out of the passive aggressive atmosphere in the house that he called home.

Like most American cities, Brockton Bay was rarely, if ever, truly quiet, but this day the noise levels rose above the normal background din of conversations, cars, and conversations about cars and girls, which were the two things Andy Shernoff of the Dictators lived for, but which for Tony was the subject of an abstract utopian past more than it was something he talked about in the present. A lot of the stores in the touristy part of town were having sales, and that was wont to make a lot of citizens crawl from the woodworks. To compensate for this increase which might scare off the tourists, after all, security had been tightened proportionally. Tony had little doubt that he would have been harassed by these forces of law and order had he not been as well known as he was.

"Finally this unmasked superhero business is good for something," he thought, a bitter scowl creasing his brow. He ventured through streets and alleys, with no particular place to go, as Chuck Berry would put it. The storefronts all were covered in signs, promising deals to astound and amaze, if only you would venture through the door. Tony bought little of it, as he wandered along. Sure he was walking the streets, but it was mostly a distraction to get away from the lofty matters on his mind.

As he was about to reject a particularely excessive salesman who'd actually left his store in pursuit, Tony stopped as he heard someone call his name. His mouth drew downward into a frown as he turned around slowly. Reluctantly, he used his fingers to shadow his eyes from the scorching sun. This was just what he needed. Another doggone fan who needed to see Tony on his best behavior. If he didn't play this right, he knew that his family would give him reason to be bugged at his old man, though maybe not in as extreme a way as Murray Wilson gave his son Brian Wilson reason to be bugged at his.

But thank the stars, Dean Martin in particular. It wasn't some group of unknowns seeking his help, his autographs, or his favour. It was the girl with whom he'd had such a rambunctious time at Barabas Pizza. Though Tony was relieved, he couldn't deny the slight resentment that rose within him at her carefree approach. He gave her what he considered to be a polite, if somewhat indifferent look.

"Oh, hello!"

That sounded far too gitty for his taste. He musn't forget that it was partly her fault that he was in dutch, or in double trouble, as these ethnically sensitive times demanded one put it, with his family.

He decided to put up a metaphorical wall between himself and this girl, before her presence lead to more conflict. He was a bit conflicted, but no doubt determination would see him through. With this in mind, he squared his shoulders, and turned back to Taylor, who could have been a friend, had they only decided to eat at another pizza place.

Author's note: Many people may have decided to finish their conversation in this chapter, but I think Tony's decision makes for a compeling stopping point, as it shows his character changing. Well, I for one find it a suitably dramatic place to end the chapter, so there.


End file.
